494 



THE BIRDS OF THE LUCKNOW CIVIL DIVISION. 



an average year. The following table supplies, I think, all the 

 information required : — 



The temperature, it will be seen, is subject to wide extremes, 

 rising in the sun's rays to as much as 1749° and sinking to as 

 low as 20.° From" the 15th March to the 15th June the 

 weather is hot and dry, the period being popularly designated 

 the " hot season." The early part of it is sometimes charac- 

 terized by violent storms, accompanied frequently by rain and 

 occasionally by hail. By the middle of April, the hot westerly 

 winds are in full force, raising sand to a great height, where it 

 drifts along and completely obscures the sky, giving the 

 atmosphere a lurid appearance. Blinding dust storms, of a local 

 and more terrestrial character, are then also of frequent occur- 

 rence ; but on calm days the heat is intense and oppressive, 

 and animated nature suffers. Though the trees have put forth 

 new leaves they are covered with dust; grassy tracts soon 

 assume the color of straw ; the landscape appears barren and 

 bare as the crops have been garnered and agricultural opera- 

 tions suspended ; while the nullahs and tanks and jhils, alike, 

 are dry or nearly so. Our feathered friends, panting and 

 depressed, seek the shelter of friendly trees and sequestered 

 nooks. The ground itself is almost as hard as iron, and except 

 some village gardens where irrigation from wells is carried 

 on, there is not an oasis to be seen in the wide wilderness of 

 dust and glare. 



But the rainy season, which usually commences about the 

 middle of June and ends with September, soon alters the 

 scorched appearance of the land. With the first general fall 

 of rain the atmosphere loses its dryness, becoming saturated 



